As stated several time already in this study and in both Crouch (2001) and Cater (2010) studies, the space related tourism industry has received little to no critical attention, despite the recent advances that gave a new wind to the Space industry. How relevant the findings of this study are regarding tourist motivation is not just important because of what they mean precisely as findings, but because those findings have no precedents in the
terrestrial Space tourism literature. Space related Tourism businesses have had only their own satisfaction survey and contact with customer to figure out how to evolve. This means that, even if the findings of this study are not like a breakthrough or a surprise, they confirm was seemed to be obvious, but also what nobody ever took the trouble to confirm with analysis.
Because of how hard it is to get people to answer surveys that are this specific, only a dedicated study could achieve this kind of result.
This is also the first very recent stone added to the terrestrial Space tourism literature, and potentially the first to actually treat of a subject apart from the general notion of “terrestrial Space tourism”. Since the existing literature is lacking so much, having one doing the groundwork about tourists motivation is also helpful in the sense that motivation precedes concepts like experiences or memories or safety.
More precisely, this study should help academics and professionals to better understand who their customer are, not in a demographic way, but rather in a motivational way. On top of that, what those tourists are most interested in and why they feel motivated to visit Space related touristic structures, can be a valuable information to have.
Additionally, understanding visitors motivation not only toward Space related content, but specifically toward educational activities can be a valuable information when it comes to content creation and what means could be used to bring that content to the visitors. It is important as well to help defining what kind of tourism destination a Space Center, a Planetarium, or an observatory wants to be from a tourism stand point, as it has been shown especially for the bigger structures, that there are choices to be made regarding what to call and define a terrestrial Space tourism Destination (Cater, 2010).
Proving that tourists are indeed motivated by specific factor and forces, is also the proof of an existing demand for certain types of content. This could help refine the visits, tours, and
81 activities proposed by terrestrial Space tourism destinations. In that line of ideas, the
relationship discovered between technology as a motivational interest, and fun, entertaining content and activities, can be a good indicator for the terrestrial industry to follow the footsteps of precursor structures like the Kennedy Space Center, and start including more interactive activities based on the technological advances and discoveries made by the Space industry. One advantage about that would be the diversity of possibilities, matching the diversity of terrestrial Space tourism Structures, as a Planetarium would not necessarily present the same content than a Space Center or an Observatory.
Furthermore, now that the most important motivation for terrestrial Space tourism have been identified, and that the important terms necessary to discuss of such topics have been defined, there is room for the progression of the academical understanding of ground Space related tourism and the people indulging in it.
Whether it is from a consumer behavioral angle, or a more traditional touristic approach such as the description and the understanding of the experience a tourist will get during a visit at a terrestrial Space tourism destination, there is a plethora of potential approach that will be needed if we are to talk one day of a proper literature body concerning terrestrial Space tourism. Additionally, even if arguments were held here towards the differentiation of Space tourism and terrestrial Space tourism, ultimately, it is likely that both field will end up being linked together as they both relate to the same general idea of “Space”. Therefore, a thorough description and analysis of all different facets of terrestrial Space tourism is going to be needed for the future literature concerning actual Space tourism, as it will potentially need to evolve based on an existing knowledge regarding why, and who indulges in Space related tourism down on earth, in order to begin to understand why and who will take part in Space tourism (Sub orbital and orbital flights).
Therefor it seems clear that there is an important amount of work and research that is going to be required, even if we are only to consider terrestrial Space tourism literature and nothing else.
For that reason, and since the lack of existing material concerning terrestrial Space tourism is so big, the only true recommendation that is going to be given here is that Space related tourism happening on earth needs to be investigated, described, and analyzed from a tourism standpoint. More visitors need to be surveyed, responsible and managers need to be
82 interviewed, and a pool of common knowledge concerning any subject and topic related to terrestrial Space tourism needs to be built as soon as possible.
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7 - Limitations
In order to carry out more tests and bring more valuable results, a larger amount of data would have been required. However, a great deal of effort came into the data collection process. As stated in the method chapter, around 30 Planetarium, Space Centers,
Observatories, and cultural museums focused on Space related topics where contacted over a period of 4 month (between July 2019 and October 2020). Out of all the structures that were asked to participate in the study, only 10 actually took the time to answer, and out of those 10, a total of 5 ended up accepting to give out surveys to theirs guests. One more structure would then recede without a word. On top of that small number of structure willing to participate in the study, most of them would not have the necessary staff to actively give the survey to their guests, instead just leaving it on a desk for the guest to freely fill it up. Those circumstances led the amount of data collected, with some structure providing only 3 survey after 4 months of data collection. This is the reason why Online survey would get involved in the study, even if it was not part of the original plan. Surveying people online is always a risk, but as
explained in the method chapter, it was done with upmost care for the important details regarding target population sample. For that reason, even the online survey did not manage to gather more than 60 participants, however it should be seen as an indicator that the
requirement given for targeting the right population sample were respected.
Overall, concerning the data gathering one important limitation to acknowledge is the political trouble that happened in France between December and January. Massive strikes greatly affected travelling capacities by train for the whole country. Since 3 out of 4 of the reviewed terrestrial Space tourism Structure happened to be located with France’s mainland territory, there has potentially been some frequentation consequences for tourism businesses.
There is not really an easy way to know if that has affected to the number of participants, but it is worth mentioning.
Additionally, the paper was limited by the lack of academic resources regarding terrestrial Space tourism, as described before, which made some part of the discussion an exercise of definition and building arguments around terms, rather than with the help of previously reviewed research paper. However, the subject of this paper was chosen knowing very well how difficult it would be to write such a discussion, and the lack of academic resources is
84 mentioned here to acknowledge the work and efforts laid down for the building of this study.
The fact that visitors of Space centers, planetariums and observatories have not been studied from any angle before limited the arguments to a simple comparison between existing motivational theory, and the findings made in this study. A more documented field of study would potentially have had possibilities to compare those findings with other similar studies, or more simply the opportunity to build on a solid base of facts and arguments.
Finally, one major limiting factor that came in place during the data gathering was the condition of being a “student”. Being a student added a layer of difficulty in the process of convincing structure to take part in the data gathering process of the study. In fact, even when some big structures voiced interest in the study’s goal and subject, they immediately stepped back and refused any collaboration when they understood that this study was a Master thesis.
This was at some point a major setback as it concerned some of the biggest terrestrial Space tourism destinations, like the Kennedy Space Center. This highlights that some structures that would have been open to participate in the study, refused only because it came from a student no matter how much insights they would gain from participating.
Additionally, there might be a lack of academic attention on one phenomenon that was observed in this study thanks to the survey’s question number 6, which was written with the secondary purpose of uncovering a potential link between the lack of motivation displayed by a respondent especially toward Space related subject and the presence of this person being justified by someone else. Many of the respondent expressed the fact that the motivation that pushed them to travel to the terrestrial Space tourism destination was not their own, but rather that is came from someone else they travelled to that said destination with. When trying to process and interpret this information, there was very little motivation literature that actually mentioned that phenomenon, when someone’s motivation is not his/her own, and comes from a partner, a group member, a friend or else. Tourism motivation despite being a research field particularly studied in the realm of tourism research, seem to have mostly ignored and
forgotten this simple, but rather important phenomenon, especially as a concept (this phenomenon might have been mentioned here and there, but not properly studied).
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